Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Pros and Cons of two job roles

Job role: Freelancer

In the future I would love to be a Freelance illustrator. I find this job role suitable for me because personally I don’t want to keep doing the same routine, and want to expand on my range of illustration skills. I’d like to self promote myself and become known for my art and be an inspiration to others. To me everything needs an illustration just like adding flavour to a meal. Freelancing gives me the opportunity to work with clients on what they want or even collaborate with other artists or specialists.
 The pros of taking this job role is that you have free time and can decide when you want to work and where you want to work. This job shows independence and self promoting to the highest level, giving you more freedom on what you want to achieve as an illustrator. You always work on something different which leads to new experiences, meeting new people and travel to a lot of places, visiting galleries and exhibitions.
 This is the dream job for me, but you can never look at the good side all the time. The bad points about this job role are that you’re not always guaranteed a constant, steady work flow. Therefore this will link to the lack of financial consistency. It will be hard at first to get you known in the world, and a challenge to try and connect to target clients. You will also have threats of companies plagiarising your illustrations and copy right. It’s an over all risky job and you would need the facilities to keep producing your work so you will need to find yourself.



Job role: Retailer

For part time jobs, I’ve always thought I’d be suited to work in a well known retail shop. Since I enjoy long boarding and being on the beach I wouldn’t mind working for Billabong, Quiksilver or any surf/skate brand companies as a retailer. I imagined if I took this job role I could possibly link to self promoting my illustrations to the brand and see where that could take me e.g. T shirt designs, skate board designs, mural for the shop etc.
 The pros of being a retailer is you have a steady income/ salary which is useful in many ways if you want to save money for specific equipment/ facilities to help your artwork. You get to live close to friends and family and possibly get discount on products in stores. It’s possibly easy transport to places depending on wear you live and less travel expenses. Also it gives you an easier option to settle down and find a house of your own, buy a new car etc.
 The cons of this job role are that it can be easily repetitive and can lead to boredom. You can get tied to one place, with the same structured time which gives you less freedom. You could end up not enjoying this job because it isn’t what you want to do however need the income to support your personal life like: paying the rent, monthly contracts and daily essentials.


Sunday, 2 June 2013

Jack Teagle Lecture Notes


  • Freelancer for 3 years
  • Did posters, t shirts, comics
  • He exhibited his work in many galleries around the world
  • Works a lot with No Brow 
  • Self publishes comics and zines and collaborated with other artists
  • As a child his biggest influences were watching cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman   ( the Tim Burton versions)
  • Other influences were vintage comics because of the style, colour scheme and boldness
  • He was inspired by artists such as Gary Baseman and Gary Panter, they have varied work, did there own stuff and are an iconic figure to Jack
  • He was also inspired by Robert Krunt's line drawings, so did alot of practise with pen work
  • He started with Art and Language studies, combining imagery and text
  • Influenced by action figures, toys and wanted to make his own
  • Exhibited in London, DNAD
  • After graduation he found it difficult to find jobs
  • After 3 months of being unemployed, the company No Brow contacted him for a job
  • He was then pushed to do proper, professional looking comic books published by No Brow
  • Clients started to flow in, and he designed comics for America, articles and hand drawn types
  • Did an Exhibition in Portugal
  • Advice from Jack was that you never know what, where people want so try and do everything possible to get known
  • Digital work helped him get more work down faster
  • Putting everything on-line and blogging everything he does will help expose his work in the highest possible way.

Thursday, 23 May 2013

TOP TRUMP CARDS - work based learning

Here are the Illustrators I studied on this task to make Top Trump cards. The artists I chose are: Alex Fuentes, Charles Burns and Gerhard Human. I generated statistics of what I think the Illustrators are rated, from 1 - 10.





 





  







   


Monday, 20 May 2013

MAPPING PRESENTATION FOR CONTEXTUAL


Plymouth Time Lapse + Presentation

Here is the link to the time lapse me and my group created. With James Rae and Alfie Bennet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMgMIHrMwUQ

And this is the link to the presentation we did.

www.prezi.com/slnonaiukj5o/plymouth-time-lapse/?kw=view-slnonaiukj5o&rc=ref-23735019

Friday, 17 May 2013

SUPPORT NETWORK/ LEARNING RESOURCE


Comparison of two support networks,  one local and one broad.

Local Jobs-
(Eg. Teaching, Art galleries-curation, mural artist, reportage, art director, tattoo artist, printmaking)
Pros:

  • You may live closer to friends and family
  • Easy transport and less travel expenses
  • You are almost guaranteed work (stability)
  • Facilities are mostly provided
  • Help/advice from tutors etc. 
  • Settle down, own house, family etc. 
Cons: 
  • You can't travel much, tied to one place
  • Repetitive work
  • Dead end job? May have to do it for financial reasons 
  • Boredom and circumstances could lead to depression etc. 
  • Less free time

Freelance Jobs-
(Eg. Book cover/comic book design, concept art, costume design, editorial, children's books) 
Pros:
  • Always working on something different- new experiences etc. 
  • Lots of travel, see new places
  • Able to visit a wide range of exhibitions and galleries
  • Meet new people
  • More independent
  • Choose where you work and when
  • Make more money as you can take on as many clients as you like
  • Freedom

Cons:
  • No guaranteed work
  • Not close to family and friends (homesickness) 
  • Less support
  • No guaranteed or steady income
  • Risky
  • Facilities needs, have to fund yourself
  • Could lead to depression (from financial strain etc) 

Comparison. 

The main points of having a local job is that you can stay closer to home, receive more support and build up funds and eventually a portfolio which is transferable when you want to take the plunge and become a freelance illustrator. As students, i imagine we would have a local job first, or a part time job, to support ourselves financially. 
In a local job you would be working to make a name for a company, and most of your creative efforts may not be seen in a broader sense. Freelance illustration provides opportunities to self promote yourself and your work, building a solid fan base and a portfolio of work which you choose to do. 


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Thursday, 16 May 2013

Support Network Local and Broad analysis ( Selling)

Selling work locally

Selling locally can help you start promoting your own work and also gives the opportunity to meet face to face with consumers, talk to them personally about your work and get feedback from them. This will help improve on your communication skills and help develop your work in the future from the public’s opinion. It also gives a very creative atmosphere and shows what you have achieved. Another good point to sell locally is that you can physically see and maybe touch the artwork, observe and have a first hand feel of what it’s like.
 There are also bad points promoting locally as well. Transportation of work can be slightly awkward and difficult. The competition will be high because of the amount of artist’s artwork selling along side so will cause a problem financially. Your personality will definitely have an effect on the target audience which decides on their interests in your work. Manning a stall can be time consuming and lead to being unproductive compared to selling work online, which is faster and easier to organise.
 I like the idea of selling my work locally because I find it’s a good start to self promotion. It also gives you a taster and the experience of meeting people, and to show off your work in your own way.


Selling work broad

Selling your work broad is a wider option outside your local area. It involves a lot of digital aspects and the audience is much bigger as you are promoting to pretty much the world instead of a specific area. The Internet is a good source, making it the fastest and easiest way to get your work known and available to the target audience. There are numerous of websites and events that can help illustrators, such as Etsy and Deviant art websites. This is a great way to promote you, sell, build a reputation and fan base. 

 The pros of selling work broad are that it is financially effective; opening to a much wider audience can produce a lot of interests. It’s not as time consuming as selling locally and you can easily create contacts. Transportation will also not be an issue. However selling broad is very impersonal, you will not be able to meet face to face with contacts and consumers can’t physically see or touch the selling artwork. Customers would solely rely on the image on the website. Certain things about the product can be misleading and can be easily misunderstood by the consumer, which links to how reliable it is. This method of selling is also dependant on technology so would have to constantly check the Internet otherwise you will lose interest and money.

SWOT Analysis

Illustration Student in Plymouth

Strengths

  • Drawing skills, lines, tones and idea generated
  • Specific style
  • Decent at digital work (Photoshop)
  • Art and Language skills
  • Presenting, speaking in front of people
  • Analysing, criticize
  •  Screen print
  • Maintain motivation

Weaknesses
  • Writing, wording things
  • Explaining
  • Use Illustrator
  • Not fully confident on Photoshop
  • Lack of facilities (need Mac Book Pro)
  • Rely on College facilities too much
  • Easily distracted

Opportunities
  • A lot of student opportunities
  • Emails from College for opportune jobs etc.
  • Style suits what I want to do, show industries
  • Sell work/ art fairs
  • Galleries, exhibition visits
  • Blog, website promotion
Threats
  • Financially could be in threat, debts
  • Lack of equipment e.g. Mac, Photoshop, printer, scanner outside of the College
  • Competition for target job
  • Facilities that stop working, breaks down or fully booked
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Comic Book artist

Strengths
  • Digital art (Photoshop)
  • Drawing skills
  • Imagination/ creativity skills
  • Motivation to business
  • Quick at drawing

Weaknesses
  • Lack of facilities like paper, book making etc.
  • Knowledge of industry
  • How to start
  • Printing resources
  • New to the job role

Opportunities 
  • Getting know for work
  • Could lead to further success e.g. TV shows, film, products, toys
  • Long term in comics, episodes and series, which means steady income
  • Collaboration with other artists or specialists like e.g. toy makers
  • Become an in house artist

Threats
  • Story or comic not as affective so lack of interest in the target audience
  • tough competition with big, mainstream companies like Marvel and DC
  • Lack of business and industry knowledge
  • No investment, lack of income

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Skateboard artist

Strengths
  • Specific style for skateboard designs
  • String with image making and creativity
  • Screen printing
  • Digital art
  • Quick at drawing
  • Motivated
  • Hard working

Weaknesses
  • Lack of facilities, sand paper etc.
  • Need to be more focused
  • Explain deigns
  • Industry knowledge
  • How to start

Opportunities
  • Promoting work
  • Getting known
  • Links to other companies
  • Earn money
  • website promotion
  • Sell or links with professional skaters
  • Sell other products e.g. T shirts, Bags etc.

Threats
  • Copy right designs
  • Tough competition with other brands
  • Facilities to mass produce
  • Lack of knowledge could lead to threat to business

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